Anderson discusses the importance of evaluation for national projects. High school teacher James Percoco discusses his applied history class and teaching with monuments, followed by two former students who work in the field of public history.
To begin the conference, Alex Stein welcomes the latest TAH grantees. He is followed by Peggi Zelinko, who emphasizes the unique opportunity posed by TAH grants—one of the few subject-specific federal education initiatives. Since 2001, more than $950 million has been awarded to administrators and educators of K-12 U.S. history, in order to improve student success and knowledge through educator professional development. Zelinko stresses accountability and cooperation. Finally, Teresa DeFlitch presents an overview of the National History Education Clearinghouse. The website collects U.S.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics' mission is, as listed on their website, "to collect, analyze, publish, and disseminate information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government. These data are critical to Federal, State, and local policymakers in combating crime and ensuring that justice is both efficient and evenhanded."
Perhaps the best resource available to K-12 teachers, is the collection of Key Facts, which offers visual representations of statistical trends in criminology. Here, you can find graphs on everything from the number of adults in probation, prison, jail, and parole between 1980 and 2008 to violent crime rates by gender between 1973 and 2008.
You can also look through collections of data or a listing of all the bureau's publications—text-based publications, data tables, press releases, and series.
According to the official website, the Architect of the Capitol "is responsible to the United States Congress for the maintenance, operation, development, and preservation of 16.5 million square feet of buildings and more than 450 acres of land throughout the Capitol complex. This includes the House and Senate office buildings, the Capitol, Capitol Visitor Center, the Library of Congress buildings, the Supreme Court building, the U.S. Botanic Garden, the Capitol Power Plant, and other facilities."
The educational offerings of the Architect of the Capitol largely come in the form of text "snippets" addressing different buildings and architectural features in the Capitol Campus, Washington, DC. Under architecture, you can look through a list of architectural features of the capitol building. Click on one for a brief history of the dome, crypt, rotunda, or other features. The art section offers the same for the murals, portraits, reliefs, and sculptures in the Capitol Campus. Finally, FAQs offer a selection of data from building materials to architectural symbolism.
Sound like a nice collection of trivia? Consider it as an alternative way to teach the social aspects of government. How do the buildings of the Capitol Campus display period concepts of the ideal U.S.A.? How do they fit the needs of the demographic which would have used them at the time of their building? Do the materials or structures speak to the power or influence of any particular individuals, families, or industries?
According to their website, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is " the principal fact-finding agency for the Federal Government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics." That is to say, when the government needs numbers on the labor force, they turn to the BLS.
If the government looks to BLS, why don't you give it a try, as well? While the site offers a wide variety of statistics and occupational outlook information, the vast majority is either current or catalogs perhaps the last decade. One of the most engaging sections, the one that we recommend to you, is the Spotlight on Statistics. This section includes a grab-bag of statistical topics, presented in colorful, easy-to-follow graphs and charts. We're still talking 20th and 21st century data, but the range covered is greater. Some of the topics aren't particularly relevant to a history classroom, unless used to compare to older statistics located elsewhere.
That said, topics of note include Health Care—both a great tie-in to current events in civics, as well as a source of historical comparison—, African American History Month, and Older Workers. In these sections, find answers to questions such as "What percentage of African Americans held at least a bachelor's degree in 1970? 2008?" and "How has the number of workers over 65 changed since 1948?"
Edutopia's Geo-Literacy Project is an interdisciplinary, project-based, approach to teaching local history that can be adapted for different locations. The goal of the project was to develop students' literacies. Throughout the project, students were guided by the essential question, why is the preservation of a local historical site—in this case, Rush Ranch—important? They explored the site from a number of perspectives, working with local experts and community partners to understand the local environment. They then built websites using primary sources, images, videos, and student-created reports. Older students helped them prepare the content for this website and use the technologies. Specifically, this project demonstrates two promising practices:
This project-based approach teaches students to think about how the past relates to their own lives and how geography, geology, and history interact. Further, because the project asks students to present their findings through multimedia, web-based accounts, the project presents an opportunity to meaningfully use technology in the history/social studies classroom and share what they have learned with a larger audience.
To view this example, either play it directly on the website or download it for free in iTunes.
The Mine Safety and Health Administration exists to make a particularly dangerous venture, mining, as safe as possible for U.S. laborers. This goal is met through a variety of initiatives which enforce national health and safety standards.
Mining. You're probably thinking it's a bit of a niche topic. However, it would fit tidily within labor history and industrialization units, or it could be used as an example of an old trade which is still in use today. The latter scenario could provide for opportunities to compare modern and period standards of equipment, process, health, and a wide variety of other broad topics.
You've been to the website, and it's decidedly daunting—so many options, with very few relevant to teaching. That's where we come in, combing through to save you time. There are two links you may want to explore.
First, pay the MSHA Library a visit. This is where most of the site's educational materials are gathered. Perhaps the most arresting information comes in the form of the photograph archive, which contains more than 1,000 historical images related to mining. You can also look at a simple web exhibit on the worst mining disaster in U.S. history, the Monangah, West Virginia, explosions. Another section worth looking at is the general digital library, which includes video and research materials. Finally, under the Fatality Archive Database, you can find .pdf files of the collected documents pertaining to many of the known mining fatalities in the 19th century through today. You can search or browse by state or time period, among other identifying factors.
The other area worth your attention is the video clip library. The "vintage" tab brings you to a collection of clips ranging in date from 1938 to 2000.
The National Institute for Literacy promotes national literacy in all its forms—from reading, writing, and speaking proficient English to on-the-job problem solving. The institute conducts research and makes existing scholarly research accessible for the non-specialist.
The institute's website is extremely simple to navigate, and breaks its content down into four sections: adult, adolescence (high school and middle school), childhood, and birth to early childhood.
Let's start in the adolescence section. Focal points for this age include fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. So, now you know the major national issues for literacy in roughly grade 7-12. What can you do about it? Try giving the tips for teaching literacy in any classroom (even non-language arts settings) a glance. If you have time on your hands, the most in-depth information available is in What Content-Area Teachers Should Know About Adolescent Literacy. This .pdf file describes decoding, morphology, fluency, vocabulary, text comprehension, reading assessment, writing, motivation, and diverse learners. Each section includes typical age-bracket difficulties and suggestions for addressing the topic at hand in any subject area's classroom.
Childhood covers grades K-3. A .pdf file, Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read, covers each area in greater depth. The lessons could easily be applied to teaching any subject, since reading and vocabulary content are applicable to all fields.
Maybe you have a student that you unfortunately cannot invest more time in specifically, and his or her parents are concerned with his or her reading level? Maybe you aren't really sure how to best address students with learning disabilities? If either scenario hits home, try the site's literacy directory. Select the demographic of concern (adult, children, learning disabilities, etc.), enter your zip code and acceptable driving distance, check a learning need, and—voila—you now have a listing of nearby literacy programs.
With so many topics to teach and so little time, many teachers find it difficult to cover military history. This lesson on the Battle of Antietam provides an excellent opportunity to both teach military history and promote historical thinking skills.
Students will hone these skills as they analyze two documents written by General Lee on the eve of the Battle of Antietam. The first document, Lee’s 1862 Proclamation to the people of Maryland, sheds light on Lee’s motivations for invading Maryland. The second document, Special Orders #191, is Lee’s marching orders that were famously intercepted by the Union Army before the battle. Focus questions that support close reading and historical thinking accompany each of these documents.
After analyzing the documents, students work in groups to create a battle plan that could be used by the Union Army to counter Lee’s plans as revealed in Special Orders #191. Each group draws their battle plan on a laminated map, and presents it to the class. This portion of the lesson is creative and interactive, but teachers are not provided with clear information about what would be an effective, historically accurate battle plan. Teachers may want to devise clear criteria for students to consider when developing the battle plan to prevent this from devolving into an ahistorical activity in which students draw up unrealistic or anachronistic plans. Alternatively, teachers and students could generate criteria together as they review the groups’ plans, but teachers will still want to be prepared to guide students in judging these plans in reasonable ways.
For homework, the lesson specifies that students are to research the battle tactics used by General McClellan to counter Lee’s plans at Antietam. This has potential to be a very useful assignment; but again, teachers will need to be attentive to the criteria students use for evaluating McClellan’s tactics.
Yes
No
Little background information is provided. Teachers will need to seek background information about the Battle of Antietam before class.
No
Students carefully read primary documents and answer focus questions, but the lesson does not include a significant writing assignment.
Yes
Students use primary documents to draw inferences about General Lee’s reasons for invading Maryland.
Yes
Students carefully read two documents about the Battle of Antietam and consider the source of the documents.
Yes
Appropriate for grades 8-12, but it may need to be adapted to meet the specific needs of particular classrooms.
Yes
Focus questions are provided to help students analyze the two primary documents. Teachers may wish to edit and adapt these questions to meet the needs of their students.
No
Students are assessed on the quality of the battle plans that they devise and their own assessment of McClellan’s battle plan. However, the lesson does not provide clear criteria for what would constitute a good battle plan.
Yes
The lesson provides clear directions and will work in many secondary US history classrooms.
Yes
